Sarah’s review for Spotlight will follow this post. Here we are focusing on Toronto’s own Rachel McAdams. But I begin with an article in the Globe & Mail, Canada’s newspaper of record, published yesterday about how Hollywood has affected the festival, specifically how the Hollywood marketing and publicity machine is sidelining Canadian journalists at TIFF in favour of the major American outlets. Reading between the lines, the Globe, which, again, is Canada’s newspaper of record, covering Canada’s premiere cultural event, is getting shut out, their requests for features declined by filmmakers and actors who’ve come to Canada to promote their projects. It’s especially ironic in the case of Spotlight, a film that highlights the virtue of investigative journalism and the contribution that a newspaper of record can have on its community. Michael Keaton made a movie advocating for newspapers. Michael Keaton, while supporting his movie about the importance of newspapers, declined to be interviewed by a newspaper, the newspaper of record in Canada. Click here to read the Globe & Mail article.
And now we come back to Rachel McAdams. When she was in Toronto in July for the premiere of Southpaw, Rachel had a LOT of time for local media. She was great on the red carpet, she worked almost the entire red carpet, talking to Toronto press, her hometown press, she was accessible and engaging and present. And she didn’t even have her own personal publicist with her. She was so chill about it she just ended up borrowing Jake’s. And that was for a movie about boxing. This movie? Spotlight? Easily my favourite film of TIFF. It’s outstanding. It’s provocative. It makes you angry. It makes you care. It makes you want to do something, to say something. And yet… Rachel hasn’t had much to say. Word around town is that her people have turned down requests from almost every Canadian media outlet. So far, there’s been no interview with the Globe & Mail, the newspaper of record in her home country, while she’s in her hometown, pushing a movie about the work of newspapers. Last night at the premiere, she arrived pretty late, later than the rest of the cast, and would only answer one question each from a small handful of outlets, most of which were not Canadian. It’s weird. Because, well, Rachel isn’t Amber Heard.
So… what’s going on?
It was confirmed yesterday that Rachel has indeed joined the cast of Marvel’s Doctor Strange alongside Benedict Cumberbatch. The Wrap had the exclusive. Perhaps they’re keeping her away from questions about Strange. Perhaps, since she’s joining the Marvel universe, they’re recalibrating her career. Moving in with Marvel is a good sign as to what her professional strategy will look like. She’s heading into big movie star territory, maybe with a big movie star attitude.
